I am a landscape architecture student at the University of Oklahoma. This is a place where I can explore links and relationships of landscape and Oklahoma.

Jord Wilson

DAYS TILL GRADUATION

Graduate Student of Master of Landscape Architecture;
Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design;
Minor in Interdisciplinary Principles of the Environment;
College of Architecture;
University of Oklahoma

wanderings

I was born in Oakland California. I grew up in North Central Washington, in the eastern foothills of the Cascades and on the Columbia River. I graduated from a school of 250 students K-12. I didn't attend college until after I was 30, so I brought to school my experience: garden designer, carpenter, concrete worker, florist, greenhouse manager, perennial expert, shrub and tree salesman, bus driver, truck driver, apartment manager and maintenance man. Frequently I worked 3+ jobs a day during my go-get-'em-like-your-killin' -snakes years. So I was well prepared for the vigor's of the University and the initiation rituals of the Architecture department. I graduated from the College of Architecture with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Design and a minor in Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Environment. College has allowed me to bundle my many paths into a single and wide corridor. I started my Master of Landscape Architecture program at the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 2006.

bearings

Knowing where I've been is the easy part. Knowing where I come from and where I am going is the challenge. I moved into a little rent house out in the country about 15 miles south of Norman Oklahoma. During my first winter in Oklahoma, I dabbled in some genealogy. I found two great-grandfathers and their families buried within a few miles of my new home. It was not just serendipity that my internal way-finder connected and centered me in the place of my forefathers. I have a deep connection with this place.

compass

The spirit of place.Present and past human connections influence our lives. Community, family and place are part of our soul. Regional identity is both cultural and physical. The spirit of place is what nourishes our beginings and tethers our world view. It is also that soul and bond that embraces our community. Technology has allowed us to disregard the environmental aspects of place. The media wants us to believe we are a global society and that our world is getting smaller. Our world gets smaller when we exchange our spirit of place for anothers. The spirit of place must be unearthed again to regain the comfort of belonging.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

I want to design an Eco-boulevard

I wonder if a landscape architect could learn anything from this winning design? I found this project through Eco Tecture. Check out the "Engineering an Empire" page for diagrams of the project. It is pretty conceptual, but it is where we should be going with city and urban planning and site design. I think that our current means of waste disposal are really a postponement of clean-up and expense. Hopefully we will continue to move towards a more cyclical friendly means of waste disposal, instead of our current stock-pile and pass-it-along mentality.

Growing WaterIn 2106, water will be the world's most valuable resource: the new oil. UrbanLab's project envisions Chicago evolving into a model city for "growing water" by creating a series of Eco-Boulevards spread throughout the city. The Eco-boulevards will function as a giant "Living Machine" which will treat 100% of Chicago's wastewater and stormwater naturally, using micro-organisms, small invertebrates (such as snails), fish and plants. Treated water will be harvested and/or returned to the Great Lakes Basin. Ultimately, the Eco-Boulevards will create a closed water loop within Chicago.

The Growing Water project is inspired by three historic Chicago engineering feats:

The "Emerald Necklace" of public parks, boulevards and waterways, which will be greatly supplemented by the new Eco-Boulevards,

The reversal of the Chicago River, which UrbanLab proposes to un-do in order to retain (not drain) Lake Michigan; and,

The Deep Tunnel, which UrbanLab proposes to re-program to house mass-transportation trains.

Chicago "The city of Chicago winner - Urban Lab - takes its inspiration from the wonders of water. By focusing on ecosystems as living dimensions of the city, the proposal creates a green infrastructure. The authors aim at creating a self-sufficient living system, by proposing a 100% saving, recycling and "growing" of water resources. This visionary project envisions the creation of boulevards, water ways and a renewed sense of the interconnectedness of resources in the City. The idea is a powerful one, and the projected vistas remind us of the utopian dreams of 19th and 20th century architectural visions. The kind of life that is implied is one where skyscrapers are standing in green fields; where the word "urban" looses all its historical and social connotations. Are we on the threshold of a viable reality? Or, does this project reveal all the contradictions of modern society and the notion that nature has lost all its "naturalness."